Ada Lovelace: The Enchantress of Numbers

From the first program that Ada Lovelace created for the Analytical Engine to present day laptops and tablet PCs, Google has doodled the evolution of computers on the occasion of the world's first computer programmer's 197th birth anniversary.

The doodle shows Ada Lovelace writing the pioneering computer program with a quill pen seated on a desk and the paper scroll she is writing her algorithm on twirls in the shape of the letters of the Google logo.

Ada King, the countess of Lovelace, was born on December 10, 1815 in Piccadilly Terrace, Middlesex, England and was the daughter of the famous poet Lord Byron, but as her parents separated soon after her birth and she did not get to know her father well.

Her original name was Augusta Ada Byron and on her marriage to William King she became Ada King and later her husband became an earl, she became the countess of Lovelace.

While she was educated at home by tutors and her mathematician mother Anne Isabelle Milbanke, her mathematical skills were further honed by Augustus De Morgan, the first professor of mathematics at the University of London, who helped her in advanced studies.

Her association with Charles Babbage, father of the computer, began when she translated an article by Italian mathematician and engineer Luigi Federico on Babbage's proposed Analytical Engine. She not only translated the work but added her notes that were more elaborate and longer than the work she was translating.

Ada Lovelace died at the young age of 36 on November 27, 1852 of uterine cancer.

Charles Babbage called her the 'Enchantress of Numbers'. Though there has been some disagreements over the extent of Ada Lovelace's contribution to early computing, the computer language Ada is named after her and a medal is awarded in her name by the British Computer Society.